Pandora's Box

Agreable moments and talents

2010-06-30T09:06:00.006+02:00

There is nothing more relaxing and enjoyable than a great gig in a beautiful place on a shallow summer evening...
Each year, the city of Perpignan organises a festival called Ida y Vuelta. 5 days of free concerts with artists who put their heart, soul, energy and talent into it and 5 evenings of rare and special moments to share.
I went to four of those evenings (too tired to go to the fifth one) but took my camera (and this is the part where you hate me) only to one of them.
The festival opened with a hip hop dance battle, followed by an evening of aerial theatre on the second day. Day 3 and 4 saw funk and soul concerts. I discovered artists that I did not know and I must admit they've grown on me since.

Check out
- Hindi Zahra who has an incredible voice and whose performance transports you into a cosy, stimulating and inspiring universe. (especially Imik Simik, look it up!)
- Mélissa Laveaux who started a little shy, which was extremely touching, before making everybody dance!
- and last but not at all least : Ben, l'Oncle Soul, who electrified the public. I've been listening to his music daily since. (his version of the White Stripe's Seven Nations Army is divine!)

But enough words for now, here are some pics :-)

Ben, l'Oncle Soul

Ben, l'Oncle Soul

Ben, l'Oncle Soul

Mélissa Laveaux

Mélissa Laveaux

Tamed

2010-06-21T10:57:00.001+02:00

C'est alors qu'apparut le renard.

- Bonjour, dit le renard.
- Bonjour, répondit poliment le petit prince, qui se retourna mais ne vit rien.
- Je suis là, dit la voix, sous le pommier.
- Qui es-tu ? dit le petit prince. Tu es bien joli...
- Je suis un renard, dit le renard.
- Viens jouer avec moi, lui proposa le petit prince. Je suis tellement triste...
- Je ne puis pas jouer avec toi, dit le renard. Je ne suis pas apprivoisé.
- Ah! pardon, fit le petit prince. Mais, après réflexion, il ajouta : · Qu'est-ce que signifie " apprivoiser " ?
· Tu n'es pas d'ici, dit le renard, que cherches-tu?
· Je cherche les hommes, dit le petit prince. Qu'est ce que signifie " apprivoiser " ?
- Les hommes, dit le renard, ils ont des fusils et ils chassent. C'est bien gênant! Ils élèvent aussi des poules. C'est leur seul intérêt. Tu cherches des poules ?
- Non, dit le petit prince. Je cherche des amis. Qu'est-ce que signifie " apprivoiser " ?
- C'est une chose trop oubliée, dit le renard. Ça signifie " créer des liens... "
- Créer des liens ?
- Bien sûr, dit le renard. Tu n'es encore pour moi , qu'un petit garçon tout semblable à cent mille petits garçons. Et je n'ai pas besoin de toi. Et tu n'as pas besoin de moi non plus. Je ne suis pour toi qu'un renard semblable à cent mille renards. Mais, si tu m'apprivoises, nous aurons besoin l'un de l'autre. Tu seras pour moi unique au monde. Je serai pour toi unique au monde...
- Je commence à comprendre, dit le petit prince. Il y a une fleur... je crois qu'elle m'a apprivoisé...
- C'est possible, dit le renard. On voit sur la Terre toutes sortes de choses...
- Oh! ce n'est pas sur la Terre, dit le petit prince. Le renard parut très intrigué :
- Sur une autre planète ?
- Oui.
- Il y a des chasseurs, sur cette planète-là ?
- Non.
- Ça, c'est intéressant! Et des poules ?
- Non.
- Rien n'est parfait, soupira le renard.

Mais le renard revint à son idée :
- Ma vie est monotone. Je chasse les poules, les hommes me chassent. Toutes les poules se ressemblent, et tous les hommes se ressemblent. Je m'ennuie donc un peu. Mais, si tu m'apprivoises, ma vie sera comme ensoleillée. Je connaîtrai un bruit de pas qui sera différent de tous les autres. Les autres pas me font rentrer sous terre. Le tien m'appellera hors du terrier, comme une musique. Et puis regarde! Tu vois, là-bas, les champs de blé ? Je ne mange pas de pain. Le blé pour moi est inutile. Les champs de blé ne me rappellent rien. Et ça, c'est triste ! Mais tu as des cheveux couleur d'or. Alors ce sera merveilleux quand tu m'auras apprivoisé ! Le blé, qui est doré, me fera souvenir de toi. Et j'aimerai le bruit du vent dans le blé... Le renard se tut et regarda longtemps le petit prince : - S'il te plaît... apprivoise-moi ! dit-il.
- Je veux bien, répondit le petit prince, mais je n'ai pas beaucoup de temps. J'ai des amis à découvrir et beaucoup de choses à connaître.
- On ne connaît que les choses que l'on apprivoise, dit le renard. Les hommes n'ont plus le temps de rien connaître. Ils achètent des choses toutes faites chez les marchands. Mais comme il n'existe point de marchands d'amis, les hommes n'ont plus d'amis. Si tu veux un ami, apprivoise-moi !
- Que faut-il faire ? dit le petit prince.
- Il faut être très patient, répondit le renard. Tu t'assoiras d'abord un peu loin de moi, comme ça, dans l'herbe. Je te regarderai du coin de l'oeil et tu ne diras rien. Le langage est source de malentendus. Mais, chaque jour, tu pourras t'asseoir un peu plus près...

Le lendemain revint le petit prince.
· Il eût mieux valu revenir à la même heure, dit le renard. Si tu viens, par exemple, à quatre heures de l'après-midi, dès trois heures je commencerai d'être heureux. Plus l'heure avancera, plus je me sentirai heureux. À quatre heures, déjà, je m'agiterai et m'inquiéterai; je découvrirai le prix du bonheur! Mais si tu viens n'importe quand, je ne saurai jamais à quelle heure m'habiller le coeur... Il faut des rites.
- Qu'est-ce qu'un rite ? dit le petit prince.
- C'est aussi quelque chose de trop oublié, dit le renard. C'est ce qui fait qu'un jour est différent des autres jours, une heure, des autres heures. Il y a un rite, par exemple, chez mes chasseurs. Ils dansent le jeudi avec les filles du village. Alors le jeudi est jour merveilleux ! je vais me promener jusqu'à la vigne. Si les chasseurs dansaient n'importe quand, les jours se ressembleraient tous, et je n'aurais point de vacances.
Ainsi le petit prince apprivoisa le renard. Et quand l'heure du départ fut proche : - Ah! dit le renard... je pleurerai.
- C'est ta faute, dit le petit prince, je ne te souhaitais point de mal, mais tu as voulu que je t'apprivoise...
- Bien sûr, dit le renard.
- Mais tu vas pleurer! dit le petit prince.
· Bien sûr, dit le renard.
· Alors, tu n'y gagnes rien !
· J'y gagne, dit le renard, à cause de la couleur du blé. Puis il ajouta : - Va revoir les roses. Tu comprendras que la tienne est unique au monde. Tu reviendras me dire adieu, et je te ferai cadeau d'un secret.
Le petit prince s'en fut revoir les roses.
- Vous n'êtes pas du tout semblables à ma rose, vous n'êtes rien encore, leur dit-il. Personne ne vous a apprivoisées et vous n'avez apprivoisé personne. Vous êtes comme était mon renard. Ce n'était qu'un renard semblable à cent mille autres. Mais j'en ai fait mon ami, et il est maintenant unique au monde.
Et les roses étaient gênées.
- Vous êtes belles, mais vous êtes vides, leur dit-il encore. On ne peut pas mourir pour vous. Bien sûr, ma rose à moi, un passant ordinaire croirait qu'elle vous ressemble. Mais à elle seule elle est plus importante que vous toutes, puisque c'est elle que j'ai arrosée. Puisque c'est elle que j'ai mise sous globe. Puisque c'est elle que j'ai abritée par le paravent. Puisque c'est elle dont j'ai tué les chenilles (sauf les deux ou trois pour les papillons). Puisque c'est elle que j'ai écoutée se plaindre, ou se vanter, ou même quelquefois se taire. Puisque c'est ma rose.

Et il revint vers le renard : - Adieu, dit-il...
- Adieu, dit le renard. Voici mon secret. Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.
- L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux, répéta le petit prince, afin de se souvenir.
- C'est le temps que tu as perdu pour ta rose qui fait ta rose si importante.
- C'est le temps que j'ai perdu pour ma rose... fit le petit prince, afin de se souvenir.
- Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité, dit le renard. Mais tu ne dois pas l'oublier. Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. Tu es responsable de ta rose...
- Je suis responsable de ma rose... répéta le petit prince, afin de se souvenir .

"Le petit Prince" de Antoine de St-Exupéry.

Quick thought

2010-02-19T18:25:00.005+01:00

I don't know where you were, all those times that I wished for a hearing ear or a comforting hand but I just though a little thank you would not be too much, a little gratitude for the listening and talking of the past few days.

And a little picture to illustrate the peacefulness that's nestling quietly inside.

Vines

2010-01-31T20:52:00.001+01:00

Yep

2010-01-30T23:00:00.000+01:00

"I meant," said Ipslore bitterly, "what is there in this world that truly makes living worthwhile?"

Death thought about it.

"Cats," he said eventually. "Cats are nice."

- Terry Pratchett, Sourcery

Horses

2010-01-27T21:03:00.000+01:00

One of a kind

2009-09-28T00:15:00.002+02:00

One of those days when the blue of sea and sky just seem more blue...
One of those sights that make you hold your breath each time again:

Un de ces jours où le bleu du ciel et de la mer semble encore plus bleu...
Une de ces vues qui vous font retenir votre souffle à chaque fois de nouveau...

On and on

2009-09-21T13:40:00.002+02:00

On and on, the sun comes up and goes down again... It's just our way of appreciating it or looking upon it that changes.

Encore et encore, le soleil se lève et se couche. Ce n'est que notre façon de l'apprécier ou de le voir qui change.

Bilingue - Going bilingual

2009-09-06T12:02:00.005+02:00

J'ai reçu, hier, une certaine plainte concernant le "mais-c'est-tout-en-anglais-et-je-ne-lis-pas-l'anglais" de mon blog... Donc allez hop, nous voici désormais en représentation bilingue. Ceci sera perçu, je l'espère, comme une grande faveur et j'espère encore plus, du coup, qu'elle ne sera pas prise à la légère et que, dans mon élan de générosité linguistique (je rigole, mais il faut dire que ça prend deux fois plus de temps du coup), je serai récompensée par un nouveau lecteur fidèle.

J'en profite également pour faire un méa culpa concernant mon absence des derniers temps. Mémoire et études obligent, je n'ai toujours pas réussi à mettre en route de machine à fabriquer le temps et suis donc obligée de choisir entre mes différents loisirs et d'en défavoriser quelques-uns. J'espère pouvoir remédier à cela d'ici peu.

Vu que la saison change une fois de plus - comme elles font immanquablement toute l'année - quelques fleurs pour célébrer l'été me semblaient de rigueur.

I received a certain complaint, yesterday, about my blog ("but-it's-all-in-English-and-I-don't-read-English...")... So, here it is, please welcome us in a bilingual fashion. I hope that this will be acknowlegded as a favor and I hope even more so that, in a response to my linguistic generosity (joking, but it does take twice more time now), I will be rewarded with a fervent new reader.

I'd also like to apologise for my absence for the past few months. Studies and end papers coming first and since I have not yet been able to put into work a time machine, I have to choose between my various hobbies et put some temporarily out of the way "for the greater good". I hope this will change soon.
Since seasons are changing once more - as they invariably do allyear long - I thought some flowers would be appropriate.

Sarah, Farmwife, Lea (and sorry for those I forget), I hope you are all well and that we'll be able to catch up soon.

Good journey...

2009-07-02T23:29:00.002+02:00

This is the wonderful sunset that welcomed me home to Perpignan when I came back from Belgium, end May.
Train trips really do something to me (cf. post "Trains make me nostalgic")
Yet I don't recommend the Perpignan-Brussels train trip - except to really nasty people then... Especially on a long weekend AND when your train stops at EuroDisney - all those mini-Mickeys getting up on the train, aargh.

Well, to make a long story short, the train trip itself was really really tiresome but that all melted away like snow from the sun when I laid eyes upon this sight.
It was a really warm "welcome home".

Gone too soon.

2009-06-27T01:11:00.006+02:00

No words needed. Just two maybe: "Goodbye..." and "Thank you"
Fly for me, Bird of the Sun, fly high.

Trains make me nostalgic...

2009-03-27T21:22:00.002+01:00

Trains make me nostalgic.
I've gone on a weekend trip to Toulouse : approximately 200 km away and three hours and a half of train trip because the train stops at about every possible station along the railroad.
And trains always have the same effect on me : they make me nostalgic.
I feel as if they're always chasing time in an always-failing effort to catch up on it. And we embark upon them to make a journey through the past, in the present or towards the future.
The feeling itself is hard to explain but I love trains.
I love sitting back and watching the view, especially when leaving from Perpignan up north because you invariably cross Leucate and its "étang".
When on a train, I become submerged by memories. Not mine because they are memories that I can't have for I haven't grown up here, but memories of time.
As the train speeds past castles with weird, old towers and fresh new swimming pools built in their gardens, I think of ancient times. How difficult it must have been to travel by horse, carriage or by foot. How long those kilometers - blurred under my feet by the speed - must have been or seemed to the travelers.
Attending a sick relative living hundred kilometers away was like a trip to the North Pole - and undertaken with about the same enthusiasm I suppose...
But today, we complain if we never leave on a weekend trip, fly up to 1400 km just to wish and celebrate a Happy Birthday and get oh-so-angry at a half-hour delay.
It seems to me we have evolved into mighty-spoiled brats, haven't we?

Narbonne station - twenty minutes stop. People complaining - again - that "it takes so long to get from A to B" and "trains ... always late... it's the government's fault..." or "why does it get to a stop so far from the entrance we came in?"
Spoiled, selfish little creatures? ...
I throw my eyes to heaven and imagine them four hundred years ago, in a skin coat, ploughing through a meter fifty of snow to hunt on a hare they'd never catch...
We are completely unaware of the easiness of our century. Certainly, there are troubles, there are dramas and catastrophes but they have always existed. Humans were just unaware of most of them before technology.

The train starts moving again. Backwards. I spot a large, a huge building that recalls a memory - truly mine this time - : I was twelve or so, and we had come from Belgium on a holiday here. We were riding past Narbonne when I saw a large building. I thought it was a university or so. It was a football or rugby stadium. And from the top of my voice, the twelve-year old that I was declared solemnly: "when I grow up, I'll teach English Literature here!"
"Fat chance" my mother may have thought. So would I if I had been conscious of my words.
But Destiny is a strange creature : it gets nasty and growls when you try to pet it but comes laying on your lap, purring, when you're not expecting it.
Here I am, more than ten years later and I have almost - almost - fulfilled that little twelve-year-old 's sentence. Almost. Will it come true?
Only time will tell.

Old and new alike...

2009-02-08T10:27:00.001+01:00

Old and new macros alike...

Coypu and seagulls

2009-02-06T09:46:00.003+01:00

We finally had three rays of sun yesterday so I went for a walk by the river that flows through Perpignan. Yes, yes, these pictures have been taken on the banks of a river that flows through a town!! It always makes me so happy to see that there is still wildlife life inside cities.

Digging

2009-02-05T12:39:00.003+01:00

Since it has been quite cold and cloudy here for the past few days, I haven't gone out with my camera much so I've decided to dig up a series of Summer pictures.
Here's the Languedoc-Roussillon region in June!

Peek-a-Boo!!

2009-02-02T12:51:00.002+01:00

Sights in Roma

2009-01-30T23:03:00.004+01:00

Roma - Part II

2008-11-28T16:11:00.004+01:00

Campidoglio (Capitole)

Porta Majore

Frascati

Pixel, Spook and Minimum - continued

2008-11-25T22:18:00.003+01:00

Remember the one-day-old kittens I found in a bag of water and bottle-fed?
Seven months old now ;-)

Spook

Minimum

Pixel

Taming Translation: reflexions on the taming and the translating process based on Bevie J. Gravlin's translated Chakka. Part I

2008-11-21T23:26:00.002+01:00

TAMING THE CONTEXT

The literary context

Before one is able to tame an animal, one has to learn to know it: to be aware of its body language, of the meaning of its different postures, of the place it holds in nature – whether the animal is a prey or a predator plays an important role in the way it will react or behave.
The same goes for a book. Before taming a work into translation, the translator has to learn about the book’s environment: the period or literary current during which it was written, the kind of public it was destined to, the country and culture in which it was originally published, the success it encountered, etc. This knowledge is necessary for the translator to be able to fully understand the text, and thus, render the best possible equivalent into the target culture, so as to provide the reader with all the information necessary to make the book as receivable as possible. It was thus important to first concentrate my attention on the literary and cultural background of the book I decided to work on.
In which type of literature can this book be included? Bevie J. Gravlin’s book Chakka was published in 1993. Approximately one and a half year later a Dutch and a German translation were on the market, but fifteen years later there is still no French one. The story is said to be a true one – and I will consider it as such during my work – about a middle-aged American woman, who dearly loves animals, adopting a wolf, named Chakka, and raising it amidst her family. The style used by Bevie J. Gravlin is airy, funny and full of detailed descriptions. The style of the book is a giant wink to feminist literature. The first thing that awakens this idea is the introductory description on the cover of the book:

“Woman loves animals. Woman takes in orphaned foxes, injured raccoons, half-dead birds, stray dogs, abandoned cats, foster children. What woman really wants is a wolf. Woman acquires wolf pup. Wolf does not eat the foxes, raccoons, birds, dogs, cats, kids, or woman. Wolf does turn woman’s world upside down. Woman learns to howl.”

The construction of those sentences has often been used in women’s literature with that particular use of the word “woman” without a determiner, as opposed to the use of “man” meaning human in general. Still, Gravlin’s book is not a feminist one, it was thus not possible to use that adjective to talk about it since “feminist” means in favor of feminism. I qualified the book as “feministic” because her style and subject can be seen as implicitly having certain characteristics of feminist writing. She draws a parallel with women’s literature by winking at certain facets of that literary style and although the subject of her book can be analyzed as feministic, she never deals with any feminist issue whatsoever in her writing. The book is not at all about feminism, it is about animal protection, the author’s love for animals and her history with one animal in particular: the wolf she adopts. Nevertheless, the subject of a woman raising a wolf is highly feministic because of the opposition between the wild animal “par excellence”, the wolf, and the tenderness with which this woman talks about it.
Ecology and feminism grew closer and closer together over the years and some American feminists compare the condition of women to the condition of endangered animal species in their struggle to have their ‘condition’ acknowledged and respected by “man” – used here both to express humanity as a whole and gender. In Women Who Run With the Wolves, the author and psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes explains her Wild Woman archetype which can be seen as a kind of feminist response to the Myth of the Bon Sauvage. According to Estes, wolves and women share a psychic bond in their fierceness, grace and loyalty to their mate and their social group.

This comparison defines the archetype of the Wild Woman, a female in touch with her primitive side and able to rely on her instinct to make choices. This archetype encountered a vast success among feminists and whole societies of “Dangerous Wild Women” were created on the internet in order “to discuss the book, and after discussing the book, live the ideas as we embraced the inner Wild Woman” . To these women, wolves became popular again and although Gravlin doesn’t, at any moment in Chakka, state similar ideas, we can’t help but acknowledge the parallel between the Wild Woman archetype developed by Estes, according to which women have to listen to their savage inner self to free themselves from man’s dominion, by listening to the wolf howling inside of them, and Gravlin’s story, in which she raises a wolf pup, learns to howl with it and creates a bond so strong that, at the end of the book, she explains that she now lives alone with all her animals – and Chakka, the wolf – and feels extraordinarily content and peaceful with this. It is as though the wolf had given her a peace she didn’t have before – maybe that same peace that Estes urges women to find by somehow listening to or taming their inner she-wolf. It is easy to see the parallel between one book telling women how to “free themselves” and the book I translated and studied in which a woman tells how she, literally, went beyond the preconceived ideas about wolves, although the book never refers to feminism.

Moreover, Chakka can be seen as valuable from an ecological point of view in today’s society, with people turning more and more to nature and becoming more concerned with ecological issues. Gravlin clearly states, at the end of her book, that she hopes the book will help protect the rest of Chakka’s species; it is a testimony of the wolf’s basic good nature – her wolf’s basic good nature which she extends to the whole lupine species. Even more so, it is a plea for the rehabilitation of wolves and the necessity for humans to learn to share territories, again, with this predator. Hélène Grimaud’s Variations Sauvages holds that same idea of rehabilitation and of how important it is for man to see and accept that nature, and especially wolves, has a lot to teach us about our respect for nature and the planet. Although neither Gravlin nor Grimaud have described their respective books as such, they could be easily seen as belonging to the literary landscape of eco-feminism which is a social and political movement attempting to unite environmentalism and feminism.

According to this movement, there exists a relationship between “the oppression of feminism and the domination of nature” . In light of all these elements, we can clearly place Chakka in the horizon of environmental and feminist writings. This being a distinct feature of the book in its original version, it seems essential that this characteristic should be retrieved in the French version as well.

Anthrozoologic writings in Anglo-Saxon and French-speaking cultures

Two other very important branches of literature to which Chakka belongs are literary non-fiction and animal literature.
Literary non-fiction has many names among which “creative non-fiction” and “documentary narrative” which I think apply best to the book. Of course, Chakka is not a documentary book but it gives an insight into the relationship a human and a wolf can build which is highly interesting.
Literary non-fiction is, mingled with the lingering American Dream, intrinsic in American culture, based “on the democratic notion that real stories about real people are worth telling” . Literary non-fiction works are a form of storytelling as old as the telling of stories and are about real people, real places and more importantly real emotions. This characteristic gives a magical and tantalizing side to non-fiction books because they combine the forcefulness of the real with literary creation.
In Gravlin’s book, the author recalls a somewhat romanticized version of her experience with an “indoor” wolf and it is that combination of literature and facts mixed with the – it has to be said – anthropomorphic descriptions of Chakka’s behavior which make this book a perfect example of Animal Novels for Adults (ANA) .
Animal literature is not only children’s literature. From Le Roman de Renart written during the 6th or 7th century, to the 1668 Fables of Jean de la Fontaine and Orwell’s 1945 Animal Farm, animals have always held a high rank in literature. The animal protagonists in writings are more often than not portrayed as humanized characters, mirrors for human behaviors that the authors wants to emphasize. This is exactly the role they play in the works cited above: they are mirrors of man and rarely represent themselves. Animals were firstly used in literary practice for humans to understand or criticize other humans. Individualized animals as protagonists are rarer and, more importantly, less popular, it seems. But with the awakening of people to animal protection and environmental issues, animals become actors in literature: characters designed by authors who want to understand them better and analyze man’s relationship to them.
English-speaking countries have always had a more pronounced fancy for Animal Novels for Adults than Latin-speaking countries. The amounts of books published with animal characters as humanized individual or leading protagonists is more important in Anglo-Saxon countries than in ours: the 20th and 21st century have witnessed the publishing of numerous empathic books with animals as head characters.

Virginia Woolf wrote Flush, the first feminine animal novel, Rudyard Kipling tells the story of the first talking dog in Thy Servant – A Dog, Dickens wrote abundantly about animals , Thomas Hardy told about animal suffering as if he felt it himself but it was the French novelist Vernon Lee –Violet Paget’s penname – who first applied the term “empathy”, which is essential to a good animal novel, to literature. Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty: Autobiography of a horse, Translated from the original Equine is one of the highpoints of this empathy. When an animal protagonist is not an allegory of human behavior, animal novels often aim at describing the animal’s condition in an anthropomorphic, albeit realistic, manner. Jack London’s Call of the Wild is a perfect – and successful – example of this. In White Fang by the same author, although the wolf of the same name shares his role as a protagonist with a human called Scott, it is again this empathic yet realistic account of the wolf’s emotional reactions which makes the novel so poignant. More recently, the British veterinary and writer James Herriot (Alfred Wright) wrote a series of semi-autobiographical novels about his work in Northern Yorkshire, Britain. His books were met with great success and two films as well as a BBC television series were adapted from them. When he died in 1995, he was one of Britain’s and America’s best-selling writers. Writers who give animals an important role in their books are too numerous to be all named but I insist on mentioning Nicolas Evans, who uses a particular animal’s condition or a natural phenomenon as backdrop for his human characters: in The Loop, it is the very controversial rehabilitation of wolves, in The Horse Whisperer, it is a traumatized horse that creates the link and in The Smoke Jumper, it is forest fires – not an animal but an element – that set the backdrop of the novel. Less known but just as interesting are Watership Down by a British author Richard Adams, which is a heroic fantasy about a small group of rabbits, the Italian Kuki Gallman’s I Dreamed Of Africa, an autobiography in which the author recounts her moving to Kenya and her fight there for nature’s protection despite the terrible losses inflicted to her by fate, and Solo’s Journey by the American Joy Smith Aiken in which a young feral cat becomes the guide and leader of his Quorum (group) to lead them out of the bondage in which the Owners (humans) are holding them.

The book Chakka distinctly follows in the footsteps of these books. The true story of a woman raising a wolf, the deep interaction between them both and the anthropomorphic insight with which it is written make it one of the numerous non-fictional animal novels for adults which are worth reading.
Still, Chakka remains closed for the many French readers who read only their mother tongue. France’s literary landscape offers fewer Animals Novels for Adults. Cats have been celebrated by Baudelaire in his poetry and many other books venerate the mystic semi-wildness of cats from Robert de Laroche’s Plus Chat que Moi to Colette’s La Chatte. Other animals are the protagonists of classic children stories – such as the Mémoires d’un Ane by the Countess of Ségur –, or of narratives that have passed unnoticed among the incredible and still increasing number of publications each year – Nicolas Vanier’s Le Chant du Grand Nord series or his Otchum, chef de meute which is one of the few French books of this type to have been translated into English under the name Otchum, A Companion in a World of Ice. This fact is representative of a notable turning in literature over the last years.
Countries such as the United States, Norway, Sweden, Great Britain, Germany and the Netherlands seem to have a more developed sensitivity towards empathic animal novels. Apart from classics like Jack London’s, for example, really famous books about anthropomorphic animals are rare. Only a slight percentage of these writings used to be translated and even fewer were originally written in French.
Of course, the amount of English works translated into French is far greater than the two percent of translations entering the Anglo-Saxon market each year, irrespective of the source language. Still, this doesn’t entirely explain why Chakka never hit the French bookshelves, neither does it account for the timid presence of the book in English, German and Dutch literary landscapes. Although animals have been present in literature for centuries, novels for adults with loved or loving animal protagonists – as opposed to mirror images of man’s behavior – have experienced a modest renewal only as late as the 1980s.
The numerous actions taken at that period to help protect endangered species, like the Environmental Protection Act of 1986 for example, awoke a collective consciousness about the protection of the planet. Books about people who spend their entire life protecting nature landed alongside biographies of famous hunters in bookshops. Yet, almost thirty years later, animal novels are still a sort of lesser known side of literature. Rarely studied in the branch of literary studies, they are left aside as recreational reading more often than not. Is the way our respective cultures perceive animals then so downgraded in public opinion? Yes, from a certain point of view it is.

At the annual Frankfurt Book Fair of 2007, Hephzibah Anderson7 was surprised to see the number of “books about beasts” presented to the public. At the beginning of her online article “Elephants, Apes Upstage Doris Lessing at Frankfurt Book Fair” , the first reaction she expressed is probably the same as that of many other people who have failed to notice the upcoming of animals as protagonists in literature:

Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The fairgrounds are teeming with apes, elephants and wolves.
There are hedgehogs from China, bonobos from the Congo, and even a psychic tabby from Rhode Island. This isn't what I expected to find at the Frankfurt Book Fair.
You'd think that the estimated 286,600 bibliophiles drawn to this orgy of some 391,600 books spread across several floors in six halls would be preoccupied with high literary discourse. Doris Lessing, after all, just won the Nobel Prize in Literature; the Man Booker Prize for Fiction will be awarded next week. Yet here under the shadow of the MesseTurm, a 1990s skyscraper with an Art Deco air, the buzz has been mostly about books featuring beasts.

The academic world has recently turned its studies with increasing interest to the human-animal relationship. The scientific study of this subject is called “anthrozoology” and brings together scholars from all possible backgrounds: from psychologists and historians to veterinarians. As time passes, man grows more and more concerned that one’s way of treating animals in fact reflects the way one treats a fellow human. Elizabeth de Fontenay’s latest book, Sans Offenser le genre humain, as well as her former writings, analyzes the human-animal relationship from a philosophical point of view. In her 1998 Le Silence des Bêtes, she explains how Christianity increased man’s perception of animals as inferior and soulless and how the growing idea of human superiority created an unconscious way of seeing animals as “The Others” .
Until Antiquity, man admired other living creatures and turned them into legendary characters of myths, teachers, and messengers from nature or even personified gods. This way of perceiving animals started to evolve, shortly before the advent of the Christian Church, from curiosity into a feeling of great superiority. The human perception of animals changed drastically. Formerly venerated predators became game for intensive hunting and the old myths telling of mighty animals became bedtime stories to scare children into obedience.
Where philosophers of the Antiquity used to concentrate on trying to understand if animals had or not the same sensitivity or reasoning capacity as humans – Plutarch pretended that animals were rational beings and could thus not be eaten by wise men –, European Christian and post-Christian philosophy became keen on determining what separated man from beasts and what made him God’s elect.

The Enlightenment only reaffirmed man’s almighty position at the top of what we now call the food chain. Industrial revolutions and urbanization even further alienated Man from nature and wildlife. Colonialism offered immense new hunting grounds. Animals were imprisoned in zoos for purposes of scientific study as well as for the amusement of the public, but not yet for breeding programs of endangered species. Safaris were organized in colonized countries, not because those hunts were needed to survive, but to let out the conquerors’ thirst for might and adrenaline. The Bible had created the idea that humans “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” and human beings had, indeed, lived up to this idea so much so that a vast majority of them considered animals as existing only for man’s use.

In her previously mentioned article, Anderson quotes Isobel Dixon, a literary agent of the Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, who gives what is probably the most logical explanation for this renewed literary interest in beasts. Dixon states that viewing ourselves through the eyes of other living creatures or through our relationship to them gives us a new perspective on the world and on our lives. In our technological 21st century, indeed, we have explored views on human society through extraterrestrial intelligences, through oppressed people’s eyes, through allegories, through religious questioning or through the eyes of drug addicts and murderers but never as much before have we expressed the need to seek the approval of our fellow living creatures.

In a time when scientific alarmists roam about the planet to fill our ears and eyes with global warming, sustainable living, renewable energies and species on the verge of extinction, numerous writers use their imaginative skills to explore the animal mind. After having regarded them as inferior or indebted to our superior human condition for centuries, today’s literature, so representative of our societies, now shows one of man’s deepest concerns: the welfare of the earth. For the past thirty years, those anthrozoologic books have showed that what many humans now want is to explore the animal psychology and, perhaps, find in animals an answer to the ever increasing fears about ecology of today’s society. Unconsciously, in a time when gas and fuel become more and more expensive and our worries about our future grow, we turn once more to the animals which filled our ancient myths and legends but, this time, not in order to link them to gods or the elements; instead, we link them to our survival and turn to them for answers and examples about how humans can learn to live in renewed harmony with the world that surrounds them. Animals have thus regained a new status in literature; they have become a lens through which a glimpse of our society can be captured.
However, Gravlin’s book is not just about animals, it is about a wolf and as she states it: wolves are “in a class by themselves” . They are apart in nature as well as in the human mind and society, and all cultures do not react in the same way to canis lupus.

copyrighted material. Lauwers. Essay Master I 2008.

And we're back!!

2008-11-14T00:10:00.003+01:00

Colosseo

Hi and hello.

For the long silence, my apologies.
I finished writing my Essay for my first Master's year and I passed the exam with 15 out of 20!
I have an awful lot of things to write about but it's late and I'm getting up early tomorrow.

To reward you for your patience, here are three pictures of Rome, taken two weeks ago.
The whole account and more pictures soon.

Piazza di Spagna

Fontana di Trevi (by night)

Light games

2008-07-08T11:32:00.000+02:00

Flower?? Butterfly??

2008-07-08T11:20:00.003+02:00

Please pronounce title just like this little fellow ;-)

Thoughts on water...

2008-06-26T23:22:00.001+02:00

With all due respect

2008-06-26T23:15:00.001+02:00

Little Monkeys

2008-06-23T00:23:00.002+02:00

Swan(s)

2008-06-23T00:15:00.001+02:00

Sun, garden, flowers...

2008-06-23T00:06:00.001+02:00

Party time in Perpignan

2008-06-07T16:27:00.002+02:00

Garden gadgets & Ipomea

2008-06-05T12:14:00.003+02:00

Welcome to the world...

2008-05-29T22:07:00.002+02:00

A big "hi and hello" to little Jeanne, newly born daughter of our friends Olivier and Isabelle.
Bravo to both of you, she's gorgeous!
And a hearty welcome to you, little Jeanne, a little star born on French Mother's Day!

Do you play??

2008-05-25T23:45:00.003+02:00

Sssscccraaatttcchhh....
That's about the noise that the kittens make when I have to "pluck" them off of me now ;-)
They're one month old and rabbit-hopping all around the room when I let them.
They're living in a foldable wire-pen I have for my rabbits and when I open the gate and walk towards the kitchen, I have three fluff balls dribbling after me to have a bottle.
They've reached the age when everything becomes a play. I think I have hardly ever seen anything as funny as those three furry balls of fluff playing tag and roll'em-over on the carpet. When one does a somersault and lands on its back, both other kittens leap on top of the first one and bite its toes and ears. The bundle of feet and legs then moves together, making it hard to tell where one kitten starts and the others begin. Occasionally, one of them will sit back on its haunches to rest a little, but the others are not ready to settle down and on it goes like this. I'm not sure who wins the fights, since they all seem to resolve themselves in all kitties collapsing at once in a heap and falling asleep on the nearest square of carpet.
Quiet then reigns for no more than an hour before someone in the pile stucks a paw in someone else's eye and the battle is on again.

I have to go now, I am being stared at by six hungry little eyes, accompanied by squeals that would wake even a hibernating bear. ^^

Pim-pidee-Pim

2008-05-19T23:54:00.003+02:00

Where is the time you were so much smaller than the kittens and suckling from a bottle too??

Going on 4 weeks of age!

2008-05-19T23:38:00.002+02:00

Oh, and they adopted the litterbox ;-) yipeee!!

thanks to Catharina for these pictures.

Sad songs say so much - Elton John

2008-05-17T00:58:00.001+02:00

Guess there are times when we all need to share a little pain
And ironing out the rough spots
Is the hardest part when memories remain
And it's times like these when we all need to hear the radio
`Cause from the lips of some old singer
We can share the troubles we already know

Turn them on, turn them on
Turn on those sad songs
When all hope is gone
Why don't you tune in and turn them on

They reach into your room
Just feel their gentle touch
When all hope is gone
Sad songs say so much

If someone else is suffering enough to write it down
When every single word makes sense
Then it's easier to have those songs around
The kick inside is in the line that finally gets to you
and it feels so good to hurt so bad
And suffer just enough to sing the blues

Sad songs, they say
Sad songs, they say
Sad songs, they say
Sad songs, they say so much

The peace of wild things

2008-05-15T00:22:00.001+02:00

When despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

- by Wendell Berry

From Gillian's Tumblelog

Growing

2008-05-08T13:53:00.002+02:00

Almost three weeks old now!!

Sharing wonders...

2008-05-01T20:01:00.004+02:00

I just discovered some marvellous person...
A tumblelog with thoughts that have dwelled in my soul for years and years without ever being transformed into words.
I've always been persuaded that they would stay figures of smoke, ashes of words, just "feelings" in my head... It's good to see someone prove me wrong!
One person collected those feelings I talk about in a tumblelog resuming words of wonder.
All those things I thought I felt : I found assembled in poems, in quotes there on Gillian's TumbleLog.

Please visit, it's breathtaking.

ps : Oh, and Gillian, I can't leave a comment on your blog but thanks so so much for your comments on mine. I fell silent by all the wisdow your blog contains when reading it.

At last, I get it :

2008-05-01T19:59:00.000+02:00

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
in silence and tranquility:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears.

- by Khalil Gibran

Eyes wide.... Shut or Open???

2008-05-01T01:22:00.003+02:00

Some news from the kittens :

Pixel (the calico) was sick yesterday afternoon. I really thought she was going to pass away... But luckily she held on and we went to the vet this morning.
Pixel and Minimum (the tabby) are two females, Spook (the black one) is a little male.
Both females have an urinary tract infection and all of them are constipated because of the change mother-milk -> formula.
They have antibiotics for five days (tiny tiny doses) and their transit has to get well again within five days. If not, we'll have to change the formula.
They ate well today.
And... and ... and... Biggest news of all : Pixel opened ONE eye!! I took her in my hands this evening to feed her and one bright blue left eye looked at me. *happy sigh*

Keep your fingers crossed please!

Spook, Pixel and Minimum

2008-04-28T23:27:00.006+02:00

They have names!!!

The kittens are doing well. They eat, sleep, wake me in the middel of the night and grow! So I am a tired but happy person :-)
But now I have to introduce you properly.

Spook is the little all-black male

Pixel is a calico - probably male too but not sure.

Minimum is the tiniest of the litter, a greyish-reddish black tabby with a ginger spot on the head. Female I think but they're so little that it is hard to tell.

And here they are - on Friday - still very wet after their horrible adventure...

And - still Friday - under the care and TLC of Ulhan, my mother's half-wolf dog whose paternel instincts woke up at once seeing those tiny creatures. He even gets worried when he hears them meow over the phone now. Lol.

Pixel was sick yesterday evening - his/her stomach it seems. He was so weak and helpless and I was so scared yesterday night. Anyway, he's all right now so I can breathe again :-)

Keep your fingers crossed, y'all, so they will make it without further problems.

I have to go, it's time for a new bottle!

all pictures property of Yoyane Eeckels

Humans, grrr...

2008-04-26T01:53:00.003+02:00

I'm sorry in advance for the following words, but I really need to spit them out.

People really are cowardly jerks sometimes.
I was at my mother's today, we were sitting in the garden when we heard a painful, desperate and very little "meow". I went to search in the little natural "gutter" behind the house and found a plastic bag containing three one-week old kittens, completely wet because the bag had been filled with water that - thank God - flowed away through a tiny hole in it.
They were scared, cold and underfed.
I brought them home and gave them special kitten milk, it's one o-clock now and they're sleeping with their bellies full of five two hour appart feedings...
I honestly don't get : how can you do something like that?
If one really wants to get rid of them, at least do it correctly, in a fast way, not this barbarous treatment...

I hope I will be able to get them through it all.
Being a foster mum really seems to be something I'll have to get used to...

Pictures taken by Yoyane Eeckels, my mum

Love Cats??

2008-04-14T02:08:00.002+02:00

Just discovered this video on Youtube.

I love this.

Colourful thinking

2008-04-12T09:04:00.002+02:00

Breath taking?

2008-04-06T02:43:00.001+02:00

Pure horror

2008-04-01T18:09:00.003+02:00

"When undercover investigators made their way onto Chinese fur farms recently, they found that many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when workers flip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to skin them. When workers on these farms begin to cut the skin and fur from an animal's leg, the free limbs kick and writhe. Workers stomp on the necks and heads of animals who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut.
When the fur is finally peeled off over the animals' heads, their naked, bloody bodies are thrown onto a pile of those who have gone before them. Some are still alive, breathing in ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals' hearts are still beating five to 10 minutes after they are skinned. One investigator recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength to lift his bloodied head and stare into the camera.
Before they are skinned alive, animals are pulled from their cages and thrown to the ground; workers bludgeon them with metal rods or slam them on hard surfaces, causing broken bones and convulsions but not always immediate death. Animals watch helplessly as workers make their way down the row.
Undercover investigators from Swiss Animal Protection/EAST International recently toured fur farms in China's Hebei Province, and it quickly became clear why outsiders are banned from visiting. There are no regulations governing fur farms in China - farmers can house and slaughter animals however they see fit - meaning miserable lives and excruciating deaths. The investigators found horrors beyond their worst imaginings and concluded, "Conditions on Chinese fur farms make a mockery of the most elementary animal welfare standards. In their lives and their unspeakable deaths, these animals have been denied even the simplest acts of kindness."
On these farms, foxes, minks, rabbits, and other animals pace and shiver in outdoor wire cages, exposed to driving rain, freezing nights, and, at other times, scorching sun. Mother animals, who are driven crazy from rough handling and intense confinement and have nowhere to hide while giving birth, often kill their babies after delivering litters. Disease and injuries are widespread, and animals suffering from anxiety-induced psychosis chew on their own limbs and throw themselves repeatedly against the cage bars."

source : http://www.furisdead.com/feat/ChineseFurFarms/

PLEASE, have a look at their site.
Sensitive people : do NOT watch the video, those animals go through a living hell.
Talk about it around you. Something has to be done. Living creatures cannot be treated this way. We have to put an end to this.

Need some holidays?!

2008-03-26T22:26:00.003+01:00

Happy Easter !

2008-03-21T18:07:00.002+01:00

Invictus

2008-03-19T00:04:00.001+01:00

OUT of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul..

-- William Ernest Henley

Céret

2008-03-09T01:20:00.003+01:00

Sound of music

2008-02-23T20:59:00.003+01:00

High on a hill was a lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl lay hee hoo
Loud was the voice of the lonely goatherd
Lay ee odl lay ee odl-oo

Typical South French

2008-02-23T20:55:00.002+01:00

A lot of wind

2008-02-23T20:50:00.001+01:00

Solitude - Lewis Carroll

2008-02-16T00:50:00.001+01:00

I love the stillness of the wood
I love the music of the rill:
I love to couch in pensive mood
Upon some silent hill.

Scarce heard, beneath yon arching trees,
The silver-crested ripples pass;
And, like a mimic brook, the breeze
Whispers among the grass.
-
Here from the world I win release,
Nor scorn of men, nor footstep rude,
Break in to mar the holy peace
Of this great solitude.

Here may the silent tears I weep
Lull the vexed spirit into rest,
As infants sob themselves to sleep
Upon a mother's breast.

But when the bitter hour is gone,
And the keen throbbing pangs are still,
Oh, sweetest then to couch alone
Upon some silent hill!

To live in joys that once have been,
To put the cold world out of sight,
And deck life's drear and barren scene
With hues of rainbow-light.

For what to man the gift of breath,
If sorrow be his lot below;
If all the day that ends in death
Be dark with clouds of woe?

Shall the poor transport of an hour
Repay long years of sore distress-
The fragrance of a lonely flower
Make glad the wilderness?

Ye golden hours of Life's young spring,
Of innocence, of love and truth!
Bright, beyond all imagining,
Thou fairy-dream of youth!

I'd give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life's decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer-day.
March 16, 1853.

Life's little instruction book

2008-02-09T23:45:00.000+01:00

Have a firm handshake.

Look people in the eye.

Sing in the shower.

Own a great stereo system.

Never give up on anybody. Miracles happen everyday.

Always accept an outstretched hand.

Be brave. Even if you're not, pretend to be. No one can tell the difference.

Whistle.

Avoid sarcastic remarks.

Make it a habit to do nice things for people who will never find out.

Lend only those books you never care to see again.

Never deprive someone of hope; it might be all that they have.

When playing games with! Children, let them win.

Give people a second chance, but not a third.

Be romantic.

Become the most positive and enthusiastic person you know.

Loosen up. Relax. Except for rare life-and-death matters, nothing is as important as it first seems.

Don't allow the phone to interrupt important moments. It's there for your convenience, not the caller's.

Be a good loser.

Be a good winner.

Think twice before burdening a friend with a secret.

When someone hugs you, let them be the first to let go.

Be modest. A lot was accomplished before you were born.

Keep it simple.

Beware of the person who has nothing to lose.

Don't burn bridges. You'll be surprised how many times you have to cross the same river.

Live your life so that your epitaph could read, No Regrets.

Be bold and courageous. When you look back on life, you'll regret the things you didn't do more than the one's you did.

Never waste an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

Remember no one makes it alone. Have a grateful heart and be quick to acknowledge those who helped you.

Take charge of your attitude. Don't let someone else choose it for you.

Visit friends and relatives when they are in hospital; you need only stay a few minutes.

Begin each day with some of your favorite music.

Once in a while, take the scenic route.

Send a lot of Valentine cards. Sign them, 'Someone who thinks you're terrific.'

Answer the phone with enthusiasm and energy in your voice.

Show respect for everyone who works for a living, regardless of how trivial their job.

Send your loved ones flowers. Think of a reason later.

Make someone's day by paying the toll for the person in the car behind you.

Become someone's hero.

Marry only for love.

Count your blessings.

Compliment the meal when you're a guest in someone's home.

Wave at the children on a school bus.

Remember that 80 per cent of the success in any job is based on your ability to deal with people.

----------------

thanks, Lekha, you really made my day!

My darling Chaussette

2008-02-09T16:37:00.000+01:00

First flowers in the garden

2008-02-09T16:34:00.000+01:00

The buns!

2008-02-01T03:06:00.000+01:00

Biscuit

Pim

Bidule

Memory of a Belgian Escapade...

2008-01-26T11:22:00.000+01:00

Brrr, the Belgian cold...
How I love living in the South of France when I see this ;-)

Some colour....

2008-01-26T11:18:00.001+01:00

Bidule

2008-01-25T23:58:00.000+01:00

Edgar Allen Poe

2008-01-10T14:04:00.000+01:00

From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I loved, I loved alone.
Then- in my childhood, in the dawn
Of a most stormy life- was drawn
From every depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that round me rolled
In its autumn tint of gold,
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by,
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

On a brighter note

2008-01-08T20:58:00.000+01:00

A little flashback history of Pim, one of the orphaned jack-rabbit twins that arrived at home last Easter and I bottlefed.

For those of you who don't speak French, a (very) quick translation : Pim arrived at Easter with his twin brother Pom. They were six days old. They both made it fine.
Pom decided to go and live a life of adventure on his own in Nature (but came back to visit the garden some time ago) but Pim - who also had the choice since they were both in a badly fenced garden near fields and meadows - chose to stay and wait for me beside the door of the house. He lives a happy domestic life and invents some new mischief to do and send me into a frenzy each day.
So, beware, surprises can happen at Easter ;-)

Rainbow Bridge

2008-01-06T18:35:00.000+01:00

Next to Paradise, there is a place called The Rainbow Bridge. When an animal which has been really close to a person in our world dies, this animal goes to the Rainbow Bridge. There are meadows and hills there for all our special friends, so they can run and play together.
There is food enough, and water and sun so that our friends are warm and comfortable.
All those that were sick and aged, regain their health and their youth. Those that were injured or disabled are strong and healthy again, like we remember them when we dream about our happy memories together. All the animals are satisfied and happy, except for one detail : they miss a very special person, a person who stayed behind.

They run and play together but a day comes when one of them suddenly stops and looks at the horizon.
His eyes blinking and a strong look on his face; his body impatiently starts to shiver.
He suddenly breaks away from the others, running rapidly on the green grass, more and more rapidly.
He's seen you and that moment when you're finally reunited with your special friend, you both cuddle in a happy reunion, and you'll never part again.
Happy kisses cover your face, your hands pet that long missed head and once more you look into the trusting eyes, those eyes that had long disappeared from your life but never from your heart...

Then, together, you cross the Rainbow Bridge to Paradise.

Dear little Key, you left today. I am sorry.

A quick thought

2008-01-05T22:44:00.000+01:00

Surfing on the web, I came accross a canadian Small Animals Rescue organisation (check it out : here) and this phrase struck me :

Saving one animal won't change the world but surely the world will change for this one animal.

It's my philosophy, please think about it for just five minutes before going to sleep tonight!

A glimpse of truth...

2008-01-03T02:19:00.000+01:00

In Pim's lovely eyes and his funny little face ;-)

Happy 2008 !!

2008-01-01T02:37:00.000+01:00

I'd like to thank all of you : loyal internet friends - Sarah, Farmwife, Lea - whom I consider as true friends although we never met.
Your friendship has ment very much and I hope that we will continue this way through 2008!
To my IRL (in real life) Friends, I owe an awefully big thank you as well - for supporting me through the good and - more precisely - the bad times.

I wish you all a very happy and wonderful 2008, hoping that you will have mostly good times and luck, and if bad times do come, I wish you a helping hand, a loyal ear and a loving shoulder to cope with it.

At last but not least, to the animals of this planet :
In a world [...] more compete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. [You] are not brethren, [you] are not underlings ; [you] are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendors and travail of the earth
--Henry Beston, The Outermost House

May the human world grow to respect you more and more and see you for what you really are : lessons of life, each and everyone of you.

You are all, human and animal, precious to me.

Fog

2007-12-26T12:06:00.000+01:00

Jingle Bells...

2007-12-24T17:57:00.000+01:00

A Merry Christmas to all of you!

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve and a magical Christmas Day!

Back from Belgium

2007-12-20T22:44:00.000+01:00

Soon...

2007-12-14T06:56:00.000+01:00

Sorry about the silence, lately...
Busy week...
Bidule, my giant French lop-eared rabbit severely broke one of her hindlegs, she's been operated and luckily the operation has been successful. Now I have to wait and see how she heals.
I'm actively preparing my two-day trip to Belgium (going to see my grand-parents and present them my Man for the first time)...
As I said : busy week...

Almost time

2007-12-04T02:13:00.000+01:00

365 days

2007-12-02T14:57:00.000+01:00

Tamtam died one year ago...

Mam

2007-11-26T12:30:00.000+01:00

I love the stillness of the wood:
I love the music of the rill:
I love to couch in pensive mood
Upon some silent hill.

Scarce heard, beneath yon arching trees,
The silver-crested ripples pass;
And, like a mimic brook, the breeze
Whispers among the grass.

Here from the world I win release,
Nor scorn of men, nor footstep rude,
Break in to mar the holy peace
Of this great solitude.

Here may the silent tears I weep
Lull the vexed spirit into rest,
As infants sob themselves to sleep
Upon a mother's breast.

But when the bitter hour is gone,
And the keen throbbing pangs are still,
Oh, sweetest then to couch alone
Upon some silent hill!

To live in joys that once have been,
To put the cold world out of sight,
And deck life's drear and barren scene
With hues of rainbow-light.

For what to man the gift of breath,
If sorrow be his lot below;
If all the day that ends in death
Be dark with clouds of woe?

Shall the poor transport of an hour
Repay long years of sore distress-
The fragrance of a lonely flower
Make glad the wilderness?

Ye golden hours of Life's young spring,
Of innocence, of love and truth!
Bright, beyond all imagining,
Thou fairy-dream of youth!

I'd give all wealth that years have piled,
The slow result of Life's decay,
To be once more a little child
For one bright summer-day.

"Solitude" by Lewis Carroll.

My grand-mother is sick and I am scared.

Cat versus Mouse

2007-11-25T00:44:00.001+01:00

I should have called him "Sleepy"... :-D

A Day on Earth

2007-11-21T00:53:00.000+01:00

Just a quick word to tell you about this extremely moving and touching film.
A Day on Earth.

Take a peek at the site and go to the cinema's ;-)

Argh...

2007-11-14T09:52:00.000+01:00

I love animals but this sneakering mini Green Goblin was heading straight towards one of my favourites : Alocasia macrorrhiza
And that I don't agree with, despite my love of animals ^^

Some words for a change ;-)

2007-11-14T01:32:00.001+01:00

Stolen this test from Farm Wife

1. Name one person who made you laugh last night. Farm Wife with the recounting of her family life

2. What were you doing at 0800? am or pm? am this morning I was probably snoring more loudly than I was supposed to. pm, I was winning the fight in which I wanted to persuade my Man that I really needed to eat Chinese tonight because my hands refused to cook - eh, their fault, not mine ^^

3. What were you doing 30 minutes ago? Reading Sara's and Farm Wife's blogs and enjoying it because it had been too long ago!

4. What happened to you in 2006? uh... passed my English literature degree (yipeee!), lost my favourite rabbit (I haven't finished crying), saw my grandmother again in Belgium (had been four years - very much toooo long). Oh, and I quit smoking but started again after two months (yes, I know)

5. What was the last thing you said out loud? "DON'T pee on that carpet!!!" (to one of the rabbits)

6. How many beverages did you have today? umh... one orange juice and coffee this morning, then three, uh no, four red fruit infusions and probably a last one just now (with honey in it, mmm)

7. What color is your hairbrush? euh, wait, I have to go and check... Brown. Not cool. Not a good brush either. But what kind of question is this anyway?

8. What was the last thing you paid for? the Chinese food I absolutely wanted to eat

9. Where were you last night? Home, working on my Essay until much too late if you ask me...

10. What color is your front door? I wanted to aswer white but I think it would be more honest to say a weird type of grey.

11. Where do you keep your change? In Mr. Hippo. Don't laugh. Mr. Hippo is a little pink pet hippo I bought in Luxembourg and it carries my change for me.

12. What’s the weather like today? brrr, and wooesh woosh... meaning : cold and an awful lot of wind (not good for my hair)

13. What’s the best ice-cream flavor? Plain Vanilla with Chocolate sauce on it.

14. What excites you? receiving the books I ordered on Amazon, going to Prague next month maybe and oh, most of all : Scotland next year in May!! (me happy)

15. Do you want to cut your hair? Yes, I would want to but I don't trust those people with cisors.

16. Are you over the age of 25? nope, just under

17. Do you talk a lot? I write a lot, but I suppose that's the same thing in our numerized internet world, isn't? Yes, when I get started I'm - how to say...- quite difficult to stop. Sorry.

18. Do you watch the O.C.? what's that?

19. Do you know anyone named Steven? Whoops! At first I said "no" but I'd forgotten my dear Lea's man! So yes, I do know a Steven, but an Australian one ;-)

20. Do you make up your own words? yup, happened

21. Are you a jealous person? yup, guilty, sorry.

22. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘A’. Agathe.

23. Name a friend whose name starts with the letter ‘K’. uh? can't find one.

24. Who’s the first person on your received call list? Gosh why should I know? I checked : my mum.

25. What does the last text message you received say? "Un géant des Flandres toulousain"

26. Do you chew on your straw? No, but my rabbits do. Does that count?

27. Do you have curly hair? yes, yes, yes, and happy with it.

28. Where’s the next place you’re going to? without a doubt the library.

29. Who’s the rudest person in your life? my Man, as Farm Wife put it (I loved that phrase) he hasn't got the "I-shouldn't-say-that" button.

30. What was the last thing you ate? CHINESE ( for the third time)

31. Will you get married in the future? well I do hope so since I'm engaged...

32. What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the past 2 weeks? no idea, honestly.

33. Is there anyone you like right now? I think it would go faster if you asked me "is there anyone you dislike right now?"

34. When was the last time you did the dishes? Two hours ago, 'only'.

35. Are you currently depressed? Stressed, yes but not depressed (thanks to that wonderful medication ^^)

36. Did you cry today? no.

37. Why did you answer and post this? Don't know, thought it was funny.

38. Tag 5 people who would do this survey. Sarah maybe, Agathe, and that's about it I'm afraid...

November 13th....

2007-11-14T01:04:00.001+01:00

Is my Biscuit's birthday!
Happy Birthday my bun-bun (four years old)

Shadows

2007-10-27T13:56:00.001+02:00

Autumn beach

2007-10-24T19:54:00.000+02:00

Variations on a vase

2007-10-23T19:17:00.000+02:00

Serenity in sight

2007-10-02T23:01:00.000+02:00

Morning Glory...

2007-09-28T13:47:00.000+02:00

On the web again ;-)

2007-09-27T13:07:00.000+02:00

Signs of Autumn

2007-09-26T16:24:00.000+02:00

Good to be back

2007-09-25T20:51:00.000+02:00

Busy Bee...

2007-06-24T00:12:00.000+02:00

Long time no see

2007-06-07T10:58:00.000+02:00

Missing each and everyone of you

2007-05-12T20:16:00.000+02:00

Sarah : actually I speak three languages, that's all... And now you know all of them ;-) I miss you too, dear...

Lea : indeed, I needed some time off the Net, exams are starting next week....

I promise you all some new pictures by Monday or Tuesday...

I MISS YOU GUYS! really do....

Silence

2007-04-29T12:30:00.000+02:00

To all those of you, loyal internet friends, who wondered where I've disappeared to, SORRY!!

Internet's still not working.

Soon, I promise.

Everything and everyone's well.

I miss the net, I realised I'm probably addicted - if not to the Net, than to Blogging ;-)

Hope everyone's fine, please let me know in your comments.

'Til very soon.

Collioure

2007-04-17T14:52:00.000+02:00

Internet's not been working for the last two weeks. But my camera is ;-)
I had a wonderful romantic walk in Collioure (a wonderful beach town here, loved by many painters), we stayed for dinner and I took these two.
I like them a lot ;-)

Oh, and the baby bunnies are okay and growing well, as soon as my internet's okay, I will post new pictures of them!

In between studying...

2007-04-04T16:58:00.000+02:00

Wind and water...

2007-04-03T19:58:00.000+02:00

But this kind is okay, not like last week's rain ;-)

Eyes wide open

2007-04-02T15:09:00.000+02:00

They can see me now ;-)

Easter Bunnies

2007-03-31T19:19:00.000+02:00

Guess what a friend brought in three days ago?

Yep, yep, two orphaned baby buns... I'm bottle-feeding them.

Wet, wet, wet...

2007-03-28T11:31:00.000+02:00

Yes... It's raining once more... How can they still be talking about water restriction???
I'm sure this is my punishment for having posted a blog entry called "raindrops are....". Grrr.
I wanted to have sun and go bike riding and work on the computer for my Essay, watching a dry and sunny garden. Not a nearly drowning one. And I wanted to take pictures...
Anyway, since it's raining and I don't want to get wet, I'm digging up old pictures of the garden. Well, old is not the word, I took them yesterday ;-)

If you want an idea of what it looks like today : same, less sun, much more water.

I like rain but only when I've been warned about it, so I can settle in the couch with a gorgeous cup of steaming hot tea, a good movie or book and just listen to the raindrops...
Now I'm just unprepared. and everything's wet.

The plants are wet, the earth is wet, the mail is wet, even the cat was all wet when he turned up this morning with his proud "see-I've-been-doing-the-world-swimming-championships-too" look...
I still don't get it : that cat smells rain and wants to go outside by all means.
He comes back in as muddy as can be.
And I tell you : a muddy long-haired cat is no pleasure.
I told him like thousand times that cats are not supposed to like water but he doesn't seem to care much.
So I'll keep trying to dry him while he keeps chewing happily on the towel.

The dog on the contrary refuses to set one paw out of the door.
When I asked her if she needed to go out this morning, she got up, tail all waging and everything...
I opened the door and she froze. I got glanced at with a look that meant "are you kiding me?" and she walked straight back to the couch, stiff-legged and lady-like.

Go and figure out.
As I wrote to my friend Lea : "we have a love-the-rain-and-mud cat and no-it's-wet-outside dog"

Raindrops are falling on my head...

2007-03-26T11:26:00.000+02:00

Tadadi dadada ....

Do you know the song? ;-)

Yes... I know : If I keep that song in mind, I'll be singing Gene Kelly's Singing in the Rain next...
:-p

A little color for my 100th message ;-)

2007-03-25T22:22:00.000+02:00

Ginger...

2007-03-22T23:44:00.000+01:00